


Magic

by OdeToPedrazar (MyPrivateLaughter)



Series: Five Friends and Francis [9]
Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3146543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyPrivateLaughter/pseuds/OdeToPedrazar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Edinburgh</i><br/>They visit the cafe where Harry Potter was written and some members of the group nerd out a bit more than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic

“This is the most exciting thing ever, right?” Hero was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “We can all agree that this is the most exciting thing ever, can’t we?”

They had a long journey ahead of them up to the Isle of Skye, but there were some members of the group who felt that no trip to Scotland would be complete without a visit to this important historical landmark – The Elephant House. Vis-à-vis the café in which Harry Potter was first created.

“She could have sat in this very seat,” Benedick pointed out.

“Or this one!” Hero was almost hysterical.

But Beatrice merely shrugged. “Probably she sat here, in my seat.”

“No,” Benedick disagreed, “I’m getting some very strong vibes that it was my seat.”

Pedro and Balthazar couldn’t help smirking and exchanging an ‘our friends are adorable’ type look. In fact, they had exchanged this look a few times so far this morning, a few times more than was probably necessary in fact. To the point that an unbiased observer may begin to suspect that the sentiment being conveyed wasn’t ‘our friends are adorable nerds’ but perhaps closer to ‘ _you_ are adorable and every time I look at you my outer extremities tingle’.

It was a beautiful setting on the edge of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile with a sweeping view of the castle through panoramic windows. It was easy to imagine this as an inspiriting location in which to write.

Benedick was beaming, the horrors of their night with Uncle Len evaporated completely from his mind. “What do you think she drank?” he sighed.

“Tea, obviously,” Beatrice scoffed.

Hero nodded in agreement. “Maybe the occasional hot chocolate.” She sipped her own drink wistfully. “Do you think that she ever sat here and imagined people like us in the future? I mean, would she have thought that fans of hers would visit here because of her?”

“Probably not.”

“She probably wouldn’t have suspected there were such big geeks in the world,” Pedro grinned.

“Hey!” Benedick cried indignantly and then narrowed his eyes. “You’re lucky that I left my wand at home or you’d be on the receiving end of a curse right now!”

“Uh, do you actually have a wand?” Balthazar asked with a quiet smirk.

And Benedick was proud to declare: “God, yes! My bedroom houses the largest collection of Harry Potter memorabilia in the whole of New Zealand.”

“What?” Hero responded. “You mean, apart from my collection, naturally.”

Beatrice scoffed at them both. “We’re not _actually_ going to argue about who is the biggest fan of Harry Potter, are we? Because _really_ I think we all know that it would be me.”

Pedro leaned back in his chair and muttered to Balthazar, “I feel like this might be about to get heated.”

“Mmm,” Balthazar agreed. “Yeah.”

“Maybe we should leave them to it,” Pedro suggested. “You want to go for a walk?”

Balthazar glanced at Pedro then away again, as if he was genuinely deciding whether he wanted to or not. And perhaps there was a moment in which self-preservation almost prevailed. But then he nodded. “Um, yeah, let’s go.”

“Ok,” Pedro scraped his chair back and said, “Balth and I are going to go and let you enjoy this experience together.”

The other three weren’t really listening because now they were on a completely different topic and heatedly debating who was the most heroic character in the series.

“Albus _Severus_ , really?” Beatrice was angrily saying. “What’s so heroic about bullying an 11-year old boy?”

“He should have been called Albus Rubeus,” Benedick said, “clearly.”

Hero politely disagreed. “I really think _Remus_.”

“Egh!” Beatrice scrunched up her nose in disgust. “You’re such a Hufflepuff!”

“That’s not an insult, Beatrice!”

“Actually, I beg to differ,” said Benedick.

“Uh, should we just…” Balthazar suggested and Pedro nodded.

“Yeah, let’s just go.”

Once they were outside, Pedro and Balthazar fell into step beside each other. It was a dark day with gloomy clouds sulking over Edinburgh castle, threatening rain.

Pedro knew he had something to say but couldn’t for the life of him decide how to say it. He had completely forgotten how normal friends enquired about each other’s wellbeing. “Are you ok?” he eventually said, his voice slightly gruffer than perhaps it might have been. “Last night sucked, man.”

Balthazar looked mildly surprised by the question but nodded and said he was fine.

“Don’t be so chill! You can’t be fine!” Pedro laughed. “ _I’m_ not fine!”

Balthazar shook his head with a smile on his face. “Ok, sorry.”

But Pedro couldn’t believe that anyone could be so easy-going. “Don’t you feel so mad? Don’t you feel this knot in your stomach? Didn’t you just want to smack him so hard the entire time that we were there?”

There was a pause and then Balthazar said, “You know that wasn’t the first time someone has treated me like that, right?” And then because Pedro was silent he added, “But I yeah, I appreciate the, um, solidarity.”

Pedro was struggling with some fairly strong emotions. He felt ashamed of his own ignorance. Pedro hadn’t even thought about how comments like Uncle Len’s might not be so alien to Balthazar. And a whole separate part of Pedro wanted to have Balthazar write down the name of any person who had ever said anything vaguely hurtful. He would hunt down each and every one of them.

“Have I made you feel worse?” Balthazar ventured.

“So you just don’t care?” Pedro sounded simultaneously impressed and disbelieving.

“Yeah, course I care.” Balthazar flashed Pedro an awkward look. What did Pedro want him to say? Did Pedro want him to be hurting more? “I guess I just feel like what’s the point in being mad or upset. I know that there are lots of people in the world who think like that. I can’t go through life just imagining I will never meet any of them because I will. I’ve… just got to try to be around people who aren’t, you know, those people.”

Pedro couldn’t help laughing and it was such an affectionate, generous laugh and Balthazar grinned as well. “What?” And when Pedro just shook his head, Balthazar asked again, “ _What_?”

“You’re just so fucking Zen!”

Balthazar smirked and thought ‘well, opposites attract’. He wasn’t quite brave enough to say it though.

**Author's Note:**

> So the chapter originally just stopped when Pedro/Balthy left the cafe like 'yeah, let's go'. But I thought there should be some kind of reflection on what had happened the previous day, not just drop that whole thing and move on! So I hope it's not too heavy etc. I was trying to convey 'Balth is used to dealing with assholes and tries not to let it bother him'.


End file.
